Prolonged treatment of mice, starting at birth, with rabbit anti-mouse jI-chain antibodies resulted in the elimination of immunoglobulin-bearing B cells in these animals. The ability of these animals to elicit antigen-specific delayed-type hypersensitivity or cytotoxic T-cell responses to azobenzenearsonate-coupled spleen cells was not impaired. The effect of anti-jA treatment on the restriction by immunoglobulin heavy-chain genes (Igh) of suppressor T cells was investigated. We found that first-order suppressor T-cell factor (TsF1) obtained from anti-IA treated animals expresses an Igh restriction pattern distinct from that observed with TsF1 from normal untreated mice. Furthermore, TsF1 prepared from anti-I treated animals did not express the major crossreactive idiotypic determinants normally present in TsF1. The significance of these findings in relation to the role of immunoglobulin on the T-cell repertoire is discussed.Since the discovery of the idiotypic determinants of immunoglobulins by Oudin and Michel (1) and independently by Kunkel et al. (2), these specific structures have been shown to play an important role in the regulation of immune responses (reviewed in ref.3). Jerne (4) was the first to perceive the enormous potential for effective regulation, inherent in the ability of the immune system to produce anti-idiotypic antibodies, and to correctly postulate the existence of autologous anti-idiotypic antibodies as autologous mirror images of the antigens that elicited the original idiotypic antibodies. The Jerne idiotypic network of immune regulation of antibody responses has been amply confirmed and documented (3). The development of anti-idiotypic antibodies reactive with specific immunoglobulins stimulated the analysis of T cells for the presence of B-cell idiotypes. Initially, Binz and Wigzell (5) were the first to report the expression of Ig idiotypic determinants on alloreactive T cells. Their findings were rapidly confirmed by many workers studying other systems (6-10). The availability of antigens capable of eliciting antibody responses characterized by the expression of dominant crossreactive idiotypes (CRI), under the control of Ig heavychain (Igh)-linked genes, made these systems ideal for the study of the expression of Ig-like structures on T cells. Using anti-CRI reagents, idiotopes were detected on T cells specific for the azobenzenearsonate (ABA) (7), 4-hydroxy-3-nitrophenyl acetyl (8, 9) or phosphorylcholine (10) determinants solely in mouse strains with the appropriate Igh genotype. It was clear, however, from numerous studies (11,12) that the idiotopes expressed on T cells, in these systems susceptible to careful immunochemical analysis, represented only a small fraction of the B-cell idiotopes. Because of the apparent Igh-linked genetic control of the expression of idiotopes on T cells, and in spite of their limited specificities, the conclusion was, nevertheless, tentatively reached by workers in many laboratories including our own, that these results indicated the contri...